Tully Rinckey PLLC Is NY’s First Law Firm Certified as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business

Growing firm, founded by veterans, looks to new opportunities created by certification

February 19, 2015 – Albany, N.Y. – Tully Rinckey PLLC has become the first law firm in New York State to be certified as a Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Business (SDVOB) under a state law passed last year.

The firm certification, made by the Division of Service-Disabled Veterans’ Business Development within the New York State Office of General Services, came less than a year after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business Act. The act aims to increase eligible veteran-owned business involvement in state contracting by establishing a six percent participation goal for such enterprises.

“This certification opens new opportunities that were previously just out of reach for Tully Rinckey PLLC and other SDVOB’s like us. We are honored to be the first law firm certified under this law and look forward to servicing the needs of state contractors, agencies and authorities from our offices across the state,” said Tully Rinckey PLLC Founding Partner Greg T. Rinckey, a former active duty captain in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. “If you are a state agency or authority or contractor seeking a qualified legal firm, Tully Rinckey PLLC, the first and only SDVOB law firm in New York, wants to do business with you.”

Mr. Rinckey’s fellow founding partner, Mathew B. Tully, is a service-disabled veteran. Last May Mr. Tully was medically retired from the U.S. Army after nearly two decades of military service. His retirement came following a long recovery from injuries he sustained during a suicide bomber attack involving a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in 2012. As a result of his service in Afghanistan, Mr. Tully was awarded the Combat Action Badge, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

Mr. Rinckey also sustained service-connected injuries prior to being honorably discharged from the Army in 2004.

To speak to Mr. Rinckey, or for more information, please contact Charles McChesney at (518) 218-7100 or at cmcchesney@1888law4life.com.

Tiffany VanAlstyne pleads not guilty to murder of Kenneth White

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – The woman accused of killing five-year-old Kenneth White pleaded not guilty to a three count indictment in Albany County Court Wednesday morning.

Tiffany VanAlstyne, 20, was indicted last week by a grand jury on two counts of murder in the second-degree and one count of manslaughter in the first-degree. One of the murder counts accuses VanAlstyne of intentionally causing the death of a child. The other count alleges she showed depraved indifference to human life.

VanAlstyne’s mother, Brenda VanAlstyne, and Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple were in court for the proceeding.

“I don’t go to too many of the arraignments, but this case is something we’re probably not going to let go and forget about,” Apple said. “Obviously, it touched a lot of people, and again, there’s a lot of fragments of this case that I want to follow through on.”

Neither the prosecution nor defense would comment after her court appearance Wednesday.

VanAlstyne was the babysitter and a cousin of White. Brenda VanAlstyne had custody of White and his two siblings. In December 2014, the then-19 year old was arrested after she allegedly told police that two masked men abducted the five year old.

An Amber Alert was issued and later cancelled after a K9 officer found White’s body in a culvert across from the Thatcher Park Road home where they lived in Knox. Authorities said it had been dumped over the guardrail and covered in snow.

An autopsy revealed the cause of death was asphyxia due to strangulation and blunt force trauma.

Brenda VanAlstyne said she was not home at the time of the alleged murder and said her daughter told her the same story that she told police. In a previous court appearance, Tiffany told the judge she takes medicine for bipolar disorder.

Apple said the investigation into White’s death is ongoing.

VanAlstyne was remanded without bail. She’s due back in court February 18. She faces up to a life behind bars if convicted.

Tully Rinckey PLLC Names Managing Partners for All Firm Locations

February 12, 2015 – Albany, N.Y. – Updating its management model to handle a continuing streak of growth, Tully Rinckey PLLC has named six managing partners to oversee legal operations at its coast-to-coast office locations.

Since August 2012, Tully Rinckey PLLC has expanded to six offices across the country. The growth began when the firm added a location in Syracuse, NY, in 2012, followed by the opening of the firm’s Buffalo office in January 2013, and the opening of a Rochester office in July 2013. In April 2014, the firm relocated its Washington, D.C. office to a Class A, trophy building at 815 Connecticut Ave., NW, a block from the White House. In June 2014, Tully Rinckey PLLC moved into a newly constructed suite at 5488 Sheridan Dr. in Buffalo some five times larger than its previous location in downtown Buffalo. In September 2014, the firm opened its first West Coast office in San Diego, Calif.

Tully Rinckey PLLC’s exponential growth has necessitated the elevation of key attorneys to newly-created managing partner positions at each office:

In Albany, the firm’s corporate headquarters, Robert J. Rock has been named managing partner.

In Syracuse, Donald E. Kelly has been named managing partner.

In Rochester, Peter J. Pullano has been named managing partner.

In Buffalo, Mary Beth DePasquale has been named managing partner.

In Washington, D.C., Larry D. Youngner has been named managing partner.

In San Diego, CA, Steven L. Herrick has been named managing partner.

This reorganization of Tully Rinckey PLLC’s management structure is part of a plan developed at the beginning of the firm’s latest growth phase to decentralize key management functions and reach new levels of efficiency and client service.

To speak to Founding Partner Mathew B. Tully, or for more information, please contact Charles McChesney at (518) 218-7100 or at cmcchesney@1888law4life.com.

]]>http://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/news/tully-rinckey-pllc-names-managing-partners-for-all-firm-locations/feed/0Tully Rinckey PLLC’s Graig Zappia On How Workers Get Shortchanged In Their Paycheckshttp://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/tully-rinckey-pllcs-graig-zappia-on-how-workers-get-shortchanged-in-their-paychecks/
http://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/tully-rinckey-pllcs-graig-zappia-on-how-workers-get-shortchanged-in-their-paychecks/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 15:58:45 +0000Tully Rinckey PLLChttp://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/?p=20808Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that 2,026 people from the Capital Region received $1,200,000 in recovered wages for 2014. These are people who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime pay or fringe benefits. The average payout in the …

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that 2,026 people from the Capital Region received $1,200,000 in recovered wages for 2014. These are people who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime pay or fringe benefits. The average payout in the Capital Region was $592.30.

The Department of Labor’s Division of Labor Standards investigates wage theft. The Governor said the Department is processing cases more quickly than ever before.

Graig Zappia is an attorney with Tully Rinckey. He said sometimes wages are lost when an employee is misclassified as someone making a salary when they should be paid an hourly rate. He said sometimes, an employee is assigned a project but is told there’s no overtime available.

“It’s looking at your paycheck and, more often than not, you know you’ve worked more than 40 hours in a week and it just keeps coming up 40 hours,” said Zappia.

In some cases, he said employers don’t know they’re breaking the law.

“There are wage laws that have changed so dramatically just over the course of one year, let alone a decade. It’s very helpful on a quarterly basis to get a check up,” said Zappia.

“Whether you’re advising an employee or an employer, one of the classic things I talk to them about is a paper trail is your best friend,” he said.

Zappia said that if you’re an employer and found you’ve shorted an employee on pay, the best plan is to get in front of it and contact the government.

If you’re an employee and believe you’ve been shorted wages, you should see if there’s an internal procedure that you need to follow first.

Anyone with questions about minimum wage or other labor standards issues, or who would like to file a complaint, should call 888-4-NYSDOL (469-7365).

30 Million Dollars of Justice for NYS Workers in Unpaid and Withheld Wage Claims

By Chris Bolt & Elana SukertFebruary 4, 2015

New York Workers recovered a record amount of money in 2014 that their employers held back in pay and benefits. The State Department of Labor reports nearly 27,000 workers have recovered their wages in the past year totaling 30 million dollars. Tully Rinckey Partner Graig Zappia works with clients on labor laws regarding wages and benefits. He says employees need to be diligent about protecting their rights.

” You may find out about something and think its not worth it, but at least getting checked out. I always likened it to going to the doctors office. You may hope that it just goes away or its no big deal but if you don’t take care of it, it may be too late. That is the thing that some employees just don’t realize.”

There are two main ways that workers can get shortchanged. The first is misclassification where an employee is put in a management position but ends up doing the same work as their subordinates. That should entitle them to an hourly salary as opposed to flat pay. The second way is through lunchtime violation in which a company has a policy in place that does not allow for overtime, but because the employee has work to finish they end up willingly working their lunch hour without pay.

“One of the things that you always want to look out for, depending upon what sector you work in, is thatthere may be requirement thru your employer whether its the employment agreement you’ve signed and sometimes this involves union individuals as well. You have to look at the agreement you signed up for because there maybe some preliminary steps internally that you have to file.”

After going to Human Resources, Zappia says the next recourse is a wage claim or lawsuit. He’s found when wage-theft cases come to light they can become a class-wide claim involving thousands of individuals. In Central New York over one-thousand workers recovered 430,000 in claims; in the Finger Lakes more than 1100 people received 1.3 million. Governor Cuomo says the state is actively cracking down on wage theft.

]]>http://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/news/tully-rinckey-pllcs-graig-zappia-discusses-shortchanged-workers-on-waer/feed/0Tully Rinckey PLLC’s Graig Zappia Discusses How Workers Can Get Shortchanged In Their Paycheckshttp://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/tully-rinckey-pllcs-graig-zappia-discusses-how-workers-can-get-shortchanged-in-their-paychecks/
http://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/tully-rinckey-pllcs-graig-zappia-discusses-how-workers-can-get-shortchanged-in-their-paychecks/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 15:09:33 +0000Tully Rinckey PLLChttp://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/?p=20799$1.2M in wages recovered in Albany area in 2014 Megan Rogers February 4, 2015 More than 2,000 individuals in the Albany area received payouts for recovered wages last year, according to the state Department of Labor. About $1.2 …

$1.2M in wages recovered in Albany area in 2014

More than 2,000 individuals in the Albany area received payouts for recovered wages last year, according to the state Department of Labor.

About $1.2 million was paid out in the Albany, New York region, a piece of the total $30.2 million in payouts across the state.

The $30.2 million was disbursed to workers who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime pay or fringe benefits was the largest amount ever paid out in one year, according to the state.

The 2,026 individuals in the region who received recovered wages had an average payout of $592.

Graig Zappia, an attorney at Tulley Rinckey in Albany, says the firm sees two main issues that can led to wage disputes: Misclassification of workers and failure to pay employers for the total time they work, if they work during lunch hours or after clocking out. The firm represents both employers and employees in wage disputes.

The third murder trial of a twice-convicted Tioga County man has been moved to the Capital Region. Tully Rinckey PLLC Associate Derrick Hogan discusses with News 10 why Calvin Harris’s case was moved and why it has drawn so much attention.

Calling the mass collection of data on the movements of innocent drivers “a significant invasion of privacy,” one city lawmaker wants Albany police to purge the images collected by its network of license plate readers within “days or weeks” — not years.

Councilman Frank Commisso Jr. will introduce a resolution Thursday calling on the Albany Police Department to radically change the current retention policy for data, which is stored indefinitely on a server shared among numerous local police agencies.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, whose office controls that server, described the current situation as “a state of flux” Monday and said he is developing a new policy in concert with other local police officials.

But if Albany were to act alone, Apple said, it could significantly complicate the city’s role in the crime-fighting network.

The data generally consists of license plate information, GPS coordinates, photos and a time and date stamp. Under current rules, the data are searchable by investigators and crime analysts for five years — the statute of limitations for most felonies — and thereafter accessible only by permission of a district attorney or court order, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Commisso’s resolution comes 10 months after the Times Union reported that the Albany County server had amassed some 37 million records since going online in early 2012 and three months after a state advisory panel issued new guidance for local departments on how to handle the information.

The Municipal Police Training Council now recommends maintaining the five-year window for accessing the data and then purging the archived records after an additional 15 years — unless a district attorney deems it of “evidentiary value” to an ongoing investigation, a DCJS spokesperson said.

Retention rules are thorny because the data is shared across jurisdictional boundaries and must balance competing demands of protecting privacy and making best use of information that authorities say could help solve crimes years after the fact.

Though the equipment is purchased by local police — often with state grant money — a state-funded regional crime analysis center serves as a clearinghouse to parse it for patterns that coincide with open investigations.

The county, meanwhile, has custody of the server, with plans to bring two more online soon with the state’s help, Apple said.

Police mount the cameras on cruisers or at fixed locations, recording each license plate that passes in search of vehicles linked to wanted criminals or unsolved crimes.

The vast majority of records are of civilians suspected of nothing, and Commisso contends existing policy does not go far enough to protect the public from having authorities “create permanent records of virtually everywhere any of us have driven.”

In the nonbinding resolution, the 15th Ward Democrat calls for APD to purge license plates not flagged as germane to ongoing investigations “in days or weeks.”

It also calls for a mechanism for motorists to find out if data on them is in on the server and for the department to publicly report annually on its use of the devices — provisions backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Albany County has already honored at least one citizen’s Freedom of Information Law request for records on his vehicles in the database.

Colonie attorney Mathew B. Tully, who submitted a request after last year’s Times Union report, said county officials provided him a handful of records — all of which appear to have been recorded in the parking lot of Albany International Airport.

Albany adopting its own policy could create complications, Apple said. To start, he noted, the city doesn’t store the data; the county does. Beyond that, he said, the county doesn’t parse where the data comes from when it’s sent to the main server, raising the question how officials would distinguish which plates should be subject to the more restrictive retention guidelines.

“That’s going to be problematic, I imagine,” Apple said.

Commisso acknowledged those concerns but said his aim is to spark a wider discussion about the unintentional incursion by new police technology on civil liberties. The resolution, which is expected to be referred to the council’s public safety committee, comes as the city is soliciting proposals to install red-light cameras at up to 20 intersections.

Commisso said he’s open to discussing the proper retention period. “But first I think you have to focus on the broader policy debate,” he said. “Without intent, the government has incrementally adopted a policy of tracking the locations of innocent people.”

]]>http://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/founding-partner-matthew-tullys-freedom-of-information-request-highlighted-in-times-union-article-on-police-storing-data/feed/0CBS 6 Albany Highlights Tully Rinckey PLLC Donations of Boots and Blankets to Veteranshttp://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/cbs-6-albany-highlights-tully-rinckey-pllc-donations-of-boots-and-blankets-to-veterans/
http://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/articles/cbs-6-albany-highlights-tully-rinckey-pllc-donations-of-boots-and-blankets-to-veterans/#commentsTue, 13 Jan 2015 20:25:47 +0000Tully Rinckey PLLChttp://www.tullylegal.com/albany-ny/?p=20773Vets receive help battling cold weather January 12, 2015 Local veterans are receiving boots, hats and blankets to help them through the winter. The Tully Rinckey Law Firm made the donation on Monday to area heroes and the Albany …

Vets receive help battling cold weather

January 12, 2015

Local veterans are receiving boots, hats and blankets to help them through the winter. The Tully Rinckey Law Firm made the donation on Monday to area heroes and the Albany Housing Coalition. The firm partnered with Family Footwear in Troy as well for the donation. Greg Rinckey, a veteran himself, says this is a great way to let our heroes know they are not forgotten.